


Amelia Pond, Wizard

by randomlyimagine



Category: Doctor Who, Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fusion, Magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-02-14 02:39:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2175012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomlyimagine/pseuds/randomlyimagine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amelia Pond was The Girl Who Waited, but she stopped waiting so intently upon finding a Wizard's Manual at a rummage sale when she was thirteen. Fast forward nine years: the Doctor comes back, only to find her holding a conference call with a bunch of prospective alien tourists who want to know why they have to go undercover if they want to visit London.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Things are a Little Different Here

**Author's Note:**

> So I was on tumblr and I saw this prompt by strix-alba: http://strix-alba.tumblr.com/post/57270089055/randomlyimagine-professorsparklepants  
> It suggested a Doctor Who AU in the style of Young Wizards, where Amy finds a Wizard's Manual and proceeds to stop being the Girl Who Waited and actually does something about the universe.
> 
> And you know what, Amy's eternal, passive waiting is something that really irks me, because she had the potential to be--and often was--awesome. I'll spare you the pages-long rant about Moffat's writing, but the point is, I like Doctor Who, I like Young Wizards, and when I read that prompt, I was hit with a scene of an independent, badass, wizarding Amy Pond yelling at/negotiating with a bunch of aliens via her Manual. And I had to write it. Periodically being added to. I have a few more chapters already written, hopefully with more to come, because this is really fun to write.

"Look, I know that everyone knows about wizards on your planet, but you have to understand—"

Hissing and clacking came from the other end of the call, relayed through the translucent display, like a computer screen, in front of her.

"Yes, and that's all well and good, but—" continued the sole human voice, speaking the ancient words of the Speech.

Then came more language that, to the normal passerby, would sound like a bizarre compilation of obscure percussion instruments, kazoos, and hissing snakes.

"Seriously, guys, you can't just prance through the streets of London without some sort of disguise. I mean, you have six main appendages, not to mention predominantly green and blue pigmentation, so you'd stick out like—"

Protesting clacking sounds, quick-paced and harsh, cut the woman off again.

"What? No, no—" More voices chimed in again, interrupting her. The woman's expression stilled, her eyes narrowing as she brought her hands up near her face, muscles tightening, making her open palms vibrate with aggravation.

"Shut up! No! All of you sit down, be quiet, and listen to me!" Amelia Pond shouted at the conference call of aliens—Dolkmr from the planet Ninvenem, specifically. Their faces were displayed on the screen, signal coming across 10,432 light years in real-time, thanks to wizardry.

The aliens did, indeed, shut up.

"Right. Thank you." If Rory had been there to see, he might have thought that the set of her head, the way she nodded slightly and redirected her focus, looked decidedly self-satisfied. "Now then, I understand that your Alien Cultures Throughout Developmental Stages program wants to visit London, and that's fine. All in the interest of furthering education, and such. But you can't come to Earth without some sort of disguise, because humans haven't discovered other planets yet, and don't practice wizardry openly, which if I recall is the reason you want to come here in the first place! But what that means is that Dolkmr—who are very plainly not Human—walking around in plain sight is a tiny _bit_ of a problem."

Amelia paused. After a few moments of hesitation and several wary, eight-eyed, multi-directional glances between the people on the other end of the conference call, one of the Dolkmr spoke up, and some soft, inquisitive clicking issued from the display.

" _Yes,_ it's fine, that's what I've been trying to tell you for the past half hour. We can have some local wizards—myself included—put together some Human seemings for you guys. We will need your information, including—"

The door to her study burst open. "Amelia!? Amelia Pond!? What happened?" shouted the man who burst in, cutting off the list of highly technical specifications that Amelia had been about to rattle off. His hair was floppy, his face looked weirdly undefined, and his outfit was a mess; his shirt was torn, his necktie was askew, and he was frantic.

He paused, reassessing as he finally noticed what was actually in the room. "Well this is unexpected."

She'd put up a muffling spell around the room to block out the racket of the construction next door—truly, there was no sound as lovely as jack hammers drilling into cement—which explained why she hadn't heard him in the rest of the house, but that was a bit of a problem because now he was intruding on her video conference.

Her eyes darted back to the screen, which was hovering above her Manual without visible wires or any physical support, but more incriminating were the Dolkmr, displayed on the screen in all their turquoise and chartreuse glory.

"Excuse me, but who do you think you are!" Amelia demanded, leaning forward and hopefully blocking the view of the aliens—not that she had any hope the strange man hadn't already seen it. Practicing the Art meant no self-deception, where possible, and all that. In the meantime, she'd always found that mounting an offensive was a good first step when confused.

And speaking of no self-deception, the man looked familiar, and the reason why was just beyond her grasp, the memory almost there, rattling around in the back of her mind like she knew there was something to remember, but couldn't remember what she was looking for.

"Who am I? Who are _you_? I came here looking for a little girl, ten years old or so, and I find a grown woman on a video call with—are those Dolkmr? They _are_ , aren't they, so unless I messed up horribly with the timing, you're a wizard. So, Ms. Wizard, tell me, where is Amelia Pond?"

"She's busy," was the answer from a visibly irked woman.

"Busy?! Busy doing what? There's a scary crack in her wall, Prisoner Zero has escaped, I know what he wants, and she needs to get out of here immediately! And you too, for that matter—" The Doctor cut himself off before changing tracks: "Wait a minute, you're a wizard! You should have noticed the crack, or Prisoner Zero, or the door, or _something_ , how could you not—"

"Did you say Prisoner Zero?"

The Doctor abruptly turned to face her. "Yes. Yes I did. Why, do you know something about him?"

He might have leaned in closer than she was strictly comfortable with, but Amelia Pond was a wizard. She'd faced more unnerving things than the return of the person she realized was her Raggedy Doctor (which she was trying very hard not to react to, thankyouverymuch).

"Well, I think I'd remember my Ordeal. Those are usually the sort of thing that stick out, you know."

At this, the Doctor's face scrunched up, eyes almost crossing before going back to glancing furiously around the room from inside his tilted head.

She used the pause created by the Doctor's confusion to turn back to the screens. Switching back to the Speech, she said, "Hey guys? I've been interrupted, as you probably noticed. Can we pick this up later? Say, this time tomorrow? Sol III time and rotation, that is; about three-quarters of a planetary cycle for you."

The hissing and kazoo noises sounded mostly affirmative.

"Oh come on," she implored the one dissenting voice, "can't you move your schedule around? We were _finally_ getting somewhere, and you know what, I'd rather not lose all this progress."

Clicking, this time from a single voice.

"Thank you. Dai." Gesturing with her hands, Amelia brought up the wispy, cursive script of the Speech and poked at it briefly, switching off the call and collapsing the screen.

Then she turned back to the Doctor, who was visibly straining, as if there were a hundred and fifty-three questions he was holding himself back from asking. As soon as her attention was free, he dashed forward, seeming to analyze her as he plopped into the adjacent chair.

"Your Ordeal—your trial by fire, so to speak, for wizardry. But it typically occurs around early adolescence, for humans, between the ages of eleven and fifteen, and you're _definitely_ not fifteen. So how could you have dealt with it, I was just gone for a tiny bit and now you're at least twenty, probably more, so many years past your Ordeal. But I came right back! So this, this is not adding up, definitely—"

"Twelve years is not 'right back.'"

That brought the Doctor's monologing to a halt. "Twelve years? I'm sorry, did you say twelve years?"

The girl the Doctor had left behind all those years ago just glared.

"Then—you're Amelia Pond! And grown up. And a wizard! That's brilliant, yes, fairy tale name indeed!" The Doctor was practically bouncing in his chair, his mouth drawing into a wide, goofy smile. For her part, Amelia just tried not to let on that his prophetic comment had been part of the reason she had kept the name Amelia, after taking the Oath and becoming a wizard, instead of changing it to Amy. A fairy tale name, perfect for someone who could literally cast spells.

And if most wizards defied stereotypes and usually appeared like relatively young, modern, normal people (or animals), well, maybe she was just a bit eccentric like that. Besides, the girl who had found the Manual in a dusty, old, wooden box at a church rummage sale had been named Amelia, only thinking of changing it to Amy. And the girl who captured Prisoner Zero, confronted the Lone One overshadowing him, and returned the prisoner to the Atraxiwas named Amelia.

She'd decided, about a year of wizardry later, that that wasn't a history to run from. So, Amelia it was.

"So if Prisoner Zero was your Ordeal, does that mean it's dealt with? You dealt with it?"

"Yeah. Returned him to the Atraxi. Lots of paper work after; turns out, they were planning to burn the planet to get Prisoner Zero out, if they had to—they were being influenced by the Lone One, although less overtly than Prisoner Zero who was actually being overshadowed—but anyway, turns out that's against interplanetary law, so the local Senior Wizards made me report to people up the chain and everything, because apparently it's not enough to survive your Ordeal, you have to deal with bureaucracy, too.

"That was when I was thirteen, by the way. Three whole years after you said you'd be back."

Amelia's tone, when she got angry, had been known to strike fear into the very beings of many, many different species. To his credit, the Doctor did look ashamed; also to his credit, he was not frozen by the weight of her wrath.

"Yeah. No, I am sorry about that. I really am. It was an accident, but I am apologizing to that little girl who waited for me when I told her I'd be back in five minutes, all those years ago. And now, look at you. Amelia Pond, would you like to come with me on an adventure?"

Amelia flipped her Manual closed with a snap and picked it up off the table. True, she'd lost faith in the Doctor years ago, and moved on years ago, as she discovered magic.

But then, adventure was part of what she loved about being a wizard. It made her blood rush and her magic sing and it just made her whole being feel alive, to be out there, experiencing something almost no one else on Earth could, making an actual difference in the preservation of life. "Were you telling the truth, when you said it was a time machine?"

The Doctor looked mildly affronted. "Of course I was! Would I lie?"

"Yes."

"Okay, fair enough," he grimaced before continuing, "but I'm not lying now, clearly, because it's been twelve years for you and five minutes for me, and you know that. And look! I even still have the apple you gave me!" He reached into his pocket, grinning a bit like a maniac the whole time, and tossed her a fresh, crisp, red apple with a pale smiley face carved into it.

Amelia Pond tossed the apple back and said yes. She'd been to other planets, the far reaches of the galaxy a few times on Errantry. But all of time and space? Everything?

That was an adventure worth taking.


	2. The Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last of material I have previously posted other places, but not the last of what I've already written. Also, actual YW characters coming soon, aka I'm totally going to abuse the fact that A Wizard Alone is set in the UK.

Amelia Pond had found her Manual at thirteen. She was volunteering at a church rummage sale at the insistence of her annoying aunt. (It wasn’t even their church! They didn’t even go to church!) But it was the local fellowship just down the street, and they needed people to volunteer the night beforehand to set out all the hundreds of donated items, and again the next day to help sell those items. Amelia was still obsessed with the Doctor at that point in her life, and having to volunteer at the rummage sale was partially the price of refusing when her aunt tried to get her to sell her old dolls of the Doctor and her ten-year-old self.

So, obviously, she was there under protest.

That fact didn’t change after long hours of hanging up clothes—including _way_ too many jackets with hideously enormous shoulder pads—sorting baubles and trinkets out onto tables, gathering up all the junk that shouldn’t even have been donated, and sorting books out by genre. If anything, she was more bored, but at least the work kept her hands busy.

(Also, her aunt wasn’t there, so Amelia didn’t have to worry about resisting the temptation to throw something heavy and breakable at her head.)

There were customers, whom she helped occasionally, but really she figured she’d let the other volunteers handle it. For one, they were adults, and thus more likely to be taken seriously. Also, they probably didn’t exude a mild level of irritation whenever they spoke. (The _temerity_ of her aunt. How _dare_ she.)

So instead, Amelia Pond was hiding out amid the tables of books, leaning on the boxes, occasionally sorting, and generally trying to look small and unobtrusive. It was a surprisingly safe place, when it came to avoiding social interaction—for some reason she couldn’t fathom, no one wanted to buy books. Almost no one even came and browsed, even though they all cost less than a dollar.

But hey, not her problem. Books made a nice enough safe haven.

Amelia was running her hand absent-mindedly over some boxes of unsorted books, blindly picking them up in large sections to stack upright when her hand unexpectedly bumped into one near the top of the pile. She turned to see the stack of books swaying precariously, improperly balanced, with books jutting too far out, or being too small, to properly support the weight on top of them. The stack stayed upright—barely—leaving Amelia staring at the book on top. She held painfully still, muscles taut as she superstitiously hedged around the stack so as to not knock over the pile of books over half her height.

The book on top had a worn, brown, hard-back cover, and the title read _So You Want to Be a Wizard,_ with the author’s name in smaller print. On an impulse, Amelia walked back over, intending to grab it.

After all, the books here were ridiculously cheap. If she could get what looked like an interesting fantasy novel for seventy-five cents, why not? Besides, she would need something to do while she was grounded, and she had already read all of the books on her bookshelf. _Especially_ the fantasy and science fiction ones. Hopefully this would prove just as good—amazing and captivating and weaving stories that took seed in her imagination, there to grow and grow further, as only her favorite stories did.

Although, she mused with a pout and wrinkled brow, even a crappy and cliché novel, one of those ones where the prince has to go save the damsel in distress and then they get married, would be nice to have if she was grounded.

She maintained that the psychiatrist had deserved it. If he hadn’t wanted to be bitten, he shouldn’t have been such a meanie.

Flipping her hair over her shoulder and out of the way, Amelia stepped carefully forward and leaned in, trying not to so much as breathe on the visibly unbalanced tower of books.

The pile began swaying again as she touched the top one, _So You Want to Be a Wizard_ , but moving quickly, Amelia managed to grab it. And she forever remained convinced that it was the Manual’s magic that kept the pile from toppling.


	3. How it Happened

She told Rory, of course.

It was Rory. Not telling him would have been like…Amelia couldn’t even think of an example of what it would be like, that was how unthinkable the idea was.

More specifically, Amelia went to tell him almost as soon as she took the Oath.

She had gotten home and gone up to her bedroom the night of the rummage sale and plopped on her bed, brand new (well, to her) copy of _So You Want to be a Wizard_ in hand.

Not that Amelia had opened it and started reading right away. She had been too busy fuming because she was grounded. Again. No leaving the house, no TV, _no hanging out with Rory_. (Stupid psychiatrist.) So instead she spent about half an hour lying back, glaring intently up at her ceiling, periodically punching her pillow and muttering words that thirteen year olds were never supposed to know but actually always did.

After that she spent about ten minutes pacing around her room, muttering more, and pointedly refusing to clean up any of the clothing that littered the carpet. Her aunt could just deal with it.

After that, Amelia started to go downstairs for a snack, only to remember that she was grounded before she got halfway down the stairs, at which point she went back up to her room to sulk until dinner about her grounding and the fact that her aunt wouldn’t even let her tell Rory that she was grounded so that he would know.

And so it was about twenty minutes into the sulking that Amelia finally got bored of glaring at her ceiling and decided that, hey, she had a new book—one which she’d bought with the fear of grounding specifically in mind. At that point, she figured she might as well read it.

After that, she opened the book. And after that, she was very surprised. It wasn’t the expected fantasy-adventure book at all, or if so it was the driest and most verbose young adult novel she had ever seen. But that was decidedly not that impression she got from the first few pages of the book…

By the time she reached the Wizard’s Oath, she had all but confirmed that this wasn’t some fantasy novel at all; no, it was something very different, and most of all, much _realer_ than she could previously have imagined.

And reciting the Oath, reading the plain, block of text on the page of the Manual, letting the words rush out of her mouth one after the other…that was an experience she would never forget. Actually, Amelia had doubts that any wizard could even forget a single detail of that moment when they pledged themselves to the service of Life. Whether this preservation was just a function of how extraordinary it was for a wizard to feel the universe leaning in and listening to them for the first time, or engineered specifically to remind wizards of their purpose, Amelia still debated with herself sometimes.

Regardless, that moment where she struggled to find the courage to speak the words typed neatly on the old book in front of her always remained indelibly printed on her memory. The excitement and sheer anticipation, the surety that _this_ was how the Doctor had disappeared into thin air warred with a current of nervousness, pointing out that this vow, this commitment, sounded deadly serious.

But Amelia Pond was the girl with the crack in her wall, the girl who wasn’t afraid of anything. So she scrunched up her face and drew in a breath and spoke the Oath to the fabric of the world.

“Till the Universe’s end.” The last line rang out starkly, solemnly, with finality.

Amelia Pond waited. Something had happened, was her inescapable feeling—yet if so, none of it was immediately apparent. No magical transformation sequence occurred, no old sage with a long beard appeared to talk to her. (No Raggedy Doctor.)

Luckily, she was not in the habit of convincing herself that things hadn’t actually happened just because they were fantastical.

That moment, though; that moment was the first time the universe told Amelia Pond straight to her face, “ _You_ take care of this; it’s _your_ responsibility,” and Amelia Pond actually sat up and listened.

After a moment, she flipped through the old-looking, weathered book sitting on her lap and turned to the listing of all of the practicing wizards that she had seen earlier, while skimming. And right there, the sixth entry under P, the text read “Pond, Amelia E.”

Amelia smiled and ran to tell Rory. Then she remembered that she was grounded about halfway down the stairs. But she wanted to tell Rory, she needed to tell Rory, because magic was _real_ and what could be more incredible, especially to a thirteen year old?

That is how, two hours later, a successful transit spell became the first time Amelia Pond used magic.

Rory was pretty skeptical at first, but he wasn't in the habit of disbelieving Amelia's fantastical things either, so he looked at the Manual and let her teleport them back to her bedroom and stared in awe because he was actually there, he had actually moved all the way to another house in a split second.

Then they got in trouble, because it turned out that transit spells made a loud banging sound and Amelia’s aunt had come upstairs to investigate, only to find Amelia gone, and then back with Rory—neither of which were circumstances that were at all permissible when one was grounded. But Amelia and Rory? They were okay. And now, they had magic.

Or, well, Amelia did. But frankly? Rory might as well have it too, as close as they were. And the whole universe laid open before them.


	4. What's a Wizard's Life Without some Violence? (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I said that YW character would come in via the fact that A Wizard Abroad is set in the UK, but other characters wanted to be written more urgently. And yes, the rest of their encounter is going to show up at a later date...hopefully with winter break coming up I'll actually have time to write stuff for pleasure instead of class. We'll see.

The thing about Rory is that Rory is not a wizard. And, given that he is currently in his early twenties, he never will be a wizard.

He’s fine with that, honestly. He’s always been a pretty modest guy, and he’s content to leave the big, flashy stuff to Amelia (his fiancé, he still can’t stop smiling incurably whenever he remembers that fact). Rory? His goal is to get through life and do some good, in whatever small ways he can. That’s the reason he became a nurse, really; to help take care of people, to help heal people, to help fight Entropy in his own, little, non-magical way.

Coincidentally, that desire is also the reason that he is currently running around on an alien planet dodging laser beams.

“Duck left!” he hears Amelia shout from behind him. He listens just in time to miss the latest laser beam, and then get hit in the shoulder by the shrapnel.

He winces but he keeps running because they _really_ do not have time to stop and catch their breath. All he can think about is getting the hell away from their pursuers, reaching a section of the Crossings where they can worldgate away, and have enough lead time to do so.

He glances at the monitors again as he jumps over a table and then dodges around a family of tentacled aliens. And sure enough, none of the worldgates surrounding them lead to planets with air that humans can actually breathe. And there’s no time to prepare a spell to protect them. Of course. Because, you know, he and Amelia just have all the luck.

Then he almost runs face-first into a woman standing in front of him. From the looks of it, an actual human, quite possibly from Earth, meaning probably a wizard and also less likely to ignore their plight than everyone else. So Rory, instead of running on as he should, practically shouts, in what he’s sure is mangled Speech, “Can you help us?” Then he lapses back into English, startled as he ducks again. “We’re—“ But he’s cut off as he has to dodge another beam, and he’s trying to pull her down with him but the woman has already moved.

“In trouble?” she asks, and Rory would be lying if he claimed he hadn’t felt an immense burst of relief at finding someone who spoke English, because he can manage a few phrases in the Speech, but he isn’t exactly fluent.

“Yeah,” he breathes.

Almost simultaneously comes a shout from Amy—Rory was one of the few people who had nickname privileges with her—“Hurry up, they’re gaining!”

Amelia had depleted her prepared spells on the planet Carimdnshnas (aka their actual mission), along with most of her energy, long before they reached the Crossings, while the ammunition for Rory’s weapon had vanished even earlier. Rory is not finding that set of circumstances particularly enjoyable.

“Don’t worry,” the woman says, flicking a dark brown braid over her shoulder. “I’ve got this.” Then she reaches into her purse and pulls out a curling iron. And fires it.

Well, the good news was that curling irons are apparently effective weapons nowadays, judging by the smoldering char that had previously been one of their pursuers.

Amy stops, eyes wide, but only for a second before she seizes her chance, cracks open her Manual, and starts gathering her remaining energy for one more spell. Meanwhile, their rescuer realigns her curling iron, takes aim, and fires again. And a third time.

As for Rory, he is just bemoaning the fact that he was stupid enough to leave his laser sword (which he totally privately thinks of as a lightsaber because talk about cool) at home that day. Which is to say he sits there helpless for about five seconds before getting off his ass, noticing some unattended luggage, and throwing it piece by piece at the ten or so aliens that hadn’t yet perished, whether by their earlier efforts or by curling iron.

Together, he and the mysterious woman actually manage to hold the aliens off, forcing them to halt and take cover, exchanging fire in a miniaturized parody of trench warfare. Like most trench warfare, it quickly turns into a stalemate, both sides shooting at enemies that had taken cover too well.

But Rory doesn’t need to win. He just needs to keep the aliens off of Amelia’s back long enough for _her_ to do so.

Behind him, he hears her voice moving through the syllables of the Speech, commanding the Universe to do what she wants _right the hell now, dammit_. Then comes the Wizard’s Knot, and even Rory, non-magical though he is, can hear the spell snap into place and the Universe start to respond.

And that second, their attackers all start screeching in pain and drop to the floor. And then they die.

The newcomer whistles and lowers her weapon (which still looks like a curling iron and frankly Rory can’t quite get over that because _what_ ). “Nice. What’d you do to them?”

“Removed the mucous membranes lubricating all of their internal organs. Painful, but the spell isn’t that hard—you’re only messing with their bodies, not the laws of physics—and the internal bleeding gets just about everything pretty quickly,” Amy answers, standing up, Manual just barely visible in her hand behind the container she had used for cover. “Are you guys all right?” she then asks, giving Rory a thorough once-over as if expecting him to be secretly dead.

Please, that only happened _once_ , but is he ever going to live it down? Apparently not. “I’m good,” he says instead.

“Yep,” the woman adds, popping the p, “Not a scratch.”

“Good,” Amelia says, nodding. And, looking at the other woman, “Thanks for your help. Seriously. I’m Amelia. And I’m on Errantry, and I greet you.”

“Carmela,” she replies with a jaunty grin. “Pleasure to help my fellow Earthlings. I’m not on Errantry, though.”

Rory feels his eyebrows raise in sync with Amelia’s. Human non-wizards weren’t exactly common in outer space, to say the least…but then again, he was here too. “You’re like me, then. Rory, by the way,” he adds, gesturing to himself.

“Nice to meet you both,” Carmela says. She looks like she’s about to add something when Amy interrupts.

“We should probably get out of here before one of the other platoons finds us.”

“Wait, you mean there’s more of them running through the Crossings? Ugh, Sker’s gonna be _so_ pissed… He can probably deal with them, though, so don’t worry, you guys don’t have to play cleanup crew or anything.”

“Great,” Amy replies, and maybe the name “Sker” meant something to her because it sure didn’t mean anything to Rory. “Talk while we walk, then?” she asks. But instead of waiting for an answer, Amy turns and heads off, leaving Rory and Carmela to follow.


End file.
